后来,基普湾那套公寓的经纪人又联系了她,因为之前那笔交易失败了。“几星期的功夫,忽然有两位卖家都愿意卖房给我了,这感觉有点奇怪,”她说。那时候,她已经在西50街较远处的一栋自行管理、有20套单元的合作公寓楼里,找到了一套单卧室公寓。
这套房的价格从43.9万美元(约合人民币271万元)降到了39.9万美元(约合人民币247万元),每月维护费大约300美元(约合人民币1854元)。此处公寓要求购房者的收入不超过9.6万美元(约合人民币59万元)。公寓的整体状况不错,有几扇特别好的“猫咪观景窗”,可以俯瞰一棵大树,还能看见一个小鸟喂食器,有位邻居总是给里面装满板油。
& k9 w! U9 _4 r% \- U8 X* ~0 i西50几街 - 一套随时可以拎包入住的一居室公寓,位于一栋小楼里,外面的景观是一棵树和一个小鸟喂食器。就到此为止吧。
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" l) ~; M7 t7 c“他们的活儿干得挺漂亮,把一套原来的旧出租房变成了一套现代风格、适宜居住的公寓,”克林伯格说,“原来的股东们都记得,那个浴室一度设在走廊里。”
这一次,她出的要价被接受了。她和雅斯佩尔当年秋天就搬了进去。这个社区的工业感正好适合她。距离公寓最近的一家商铺是修车的。热水也烧得刚刚好。
雅斯佩尔不在窗台上小憩的时候,“玩得更欢,也吃得更多了,”克林伯格说。她每次和朋友们谈起自己的新家,“我都开始流泪了,因为我感觉非常幸福。”
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作者: 小灵通 时间: 2015-9-16 22:55
Wanted: A View, Preferably of BirdsBy JOYCE COHENFebruary 3, 20152 F7 `% G% n3 ^5 j" c
Katherine Marks for The New York Times
THE BUYER After a long search, Rachel Klingberg and Jasper are content in their new quarters.
$ ?9 Z2 y- @8 jIn 1991, Rachel Klingberg moved to New York as a Pace University student. After a few rental apartments elsewhere, she landed in the heart of Greenwich Village.
Her 325-square-foot studio had a wood-burning fireplace but no real closet, and a sink so small that “every time I washed a cookie sheet, I would be drenched,” Ms. Klingberg said.
Her stabilized rent rose from around $1,250 a month in 2001 to almost $2,000. One increase had been for a http://www.nyshcr.org/Rent/factsheets/orafac24.htm, or M.C.I., “which I protested because they replaced the boiler,” Ms. Klingberg said. She maintained that hot water was a necessity, not an improvement, even though she knew that state law permits such an increase.
“That is not a cross that should be borne by the tenants,” she said.
New boiler notwithstanding, it took many minutes for the hot water to heat up, if it heated up at all.
Ms. Klingberg, 42, who is from http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/longisland/?inline=nyt-geo, was eager to buy a place, and her mother was in a position to give her the down payment.
Ms. Klingberg was determined to buy in a prewar walk-up co-op building. She had heard that during http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/h/hurricanes_and_tropical_storms/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier, toilets in some high-rises did not flush. “I felt, to survive the zombie apocalypse, a prewar building is better,” she said.
Her home would also need to have a view, so that her cat, Jasper, could watch the activity outside. “I could live with facing a brick wall if I had to, but I wouldn’t put my cat through that,” she said. “My cat’s happiness is important to me.”
Ms. Klingberg, who is a web developer at Pace, began with a budget in the low $300,000s. Over nearly two years, “we saw the market change,” said her agent, Andrew Mapp of the Corcoran Group, a family friend. “We ended up at $400,000.”
Her mother steered her toward the Upper East Side, believing property values there would rise upon completion of the Second Avenue subway. But Ms. Klingberg found the neighborhood unexciting. People told her that if she didn’t like it, she could sell in 10 years. “But I didn’t want to live in an apartment I don’t like,” she said. Nor did she want to hunt again in 10 years.
Last spring, she visited a large studio, formerly a one-bedroom, on far East 14th Street, in a pretty row of six five-story attached houses. She was bemused that the listing called the busy crosstown thoroughfare a “wide, quiet, tree-lined street.” The top-floor unit had a skylight. It was listed at $365,000, with monthly maintenance in the high $500s.
Katherine Marks for The New York Times
EAST 14th STREET A large studio at the top of a five-story rowhouse was promising. The seller did not accept the prospective buyer’s bid.
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/ f2 W& E9 |6 [" ?( |# FThe floors were peeling. Ms. Klingberg offered $330,000. “They were actually insulted,” she said. (The place later sold for the asking price.)
She especially liked a one-bedroom co-op in the far West 40s. The price was $400,000, with monthly maintenance in the low $300s; income for a one-person household was capped at $66,600.
The apartment faced a back garden and had a working fireplace, which was not uncommon in the type of apartment she was seeking. She offered the asking price, but was disappointed when the apartment was sold at that price to someone else.
Katherine Marks for The New York Times
TENTH AVENUE The cat would like the view of a garden and there was a fireplace in a one-bedroom in the West 40s. Someone else got it.
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That wasn’t the only income-restricted co-op she lost to a buyer with “stronger financials,” she said. “What a shame for affordable housing to be sold to the richest buyer — the exact opposite of its purported goal” of helping middle-income earners.
“I mustered my patience because it may be the home in which I spend the rest of my life,” she said. “Certainly most of my life will be spent paying it off.”
Ms. Klingberg soon came upon a sunny Kips Bay studio, facing a quiet street, listed for $328,000, with maintenance in the low $600s. She bid the asking price, but another buyer was chosen. She didn’t much mind, because she preferred the West Side, where most of her activities take place, including meetings of the http://www.nycsteampunk.com/bartitsu/club.html of http://topics.nytimes.com/top/classifieds/realestate/locations/newyork/newyorkcity/manhattan/?inline=nyt-geo, devoted to Victorian martial arts.
Katherine Marks for The New York Times
EAST 30th STREET An alcove studio had two large closets and three cat-friendly windows. But the Kips Bay location wasn’t quite right.
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Prices were climbing “and I was feeling panicked,” Ms. Klingberg said, “like I might make a rash decision because indecision was so unsettling.”
Later, the agent for the Kips Bay place contacted her because the sale had fallen through. “It was weird that, in a matter of weeks, two sellers were willing to sell to me,” she said. By then she had found a one-bedroom in a 20-unit self-managed co-op building in the far West 50s.
The price had been lowered to $399,000 from $439,000, with a maintenance fee of around $300 a month. The apartment had an income cap of $96,000. It was in great condition, with “perfect cat windows” overlooking a big tree and a bird feeder that a neighbor kept stocked with suet.
Katherine Marks for The New York Times
WEST 50s A one-bedroom apartment in move-in condition in a small building had a view of a tree and even a bird feeder. Quest over.
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" k# Q3 o3 P# A5 e4 m& o1 w“They did a nice job making what was once an old tenement into a modern, livable apartment,” Ms. Klingberg said. “The original shareholders remember when the bathrooms were in the hall.”
This time, her offer of the asking price was accepted. She and Jasper arrived in the fall. The neighborhood’s industrial feel suits her just fine. The closest merchant does car repair. The hot water heats up right away.
Jasper, when he is not perched at the window, “is playing more and eating more,” Ms. Klingberg said. Talking with friends about her new home, “I start to tear up because I am so happy.”
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